Surgical apparatuses are generally known to be powered to enhance shaving, cutting and/or removal of tissue, bone and/or other bodily material. Powered surgical apparatuses generally include a coupling mechanism for selectively coupling and uncoupling a tool or instrument, including but not limited to an instrument for shaving or cutting tissue or bone, such as a rotating blade, for example. The rotating blade instrument can be coupled or connected to a handpiece to be held by an operator, such as a surgeon. The surgeon, by holding the handpiece, can thereby manipulate the rotating blade to shave or cut desired tissue, bone and/or other bodily material. Further, when coupling or uncoupling the rotating blade instrument or other tool with the handpiece, the operator may also couple other connections such as fluid supply or suction.
Generally understood examples of a surgical apparatus including a coupling and uncoupling device are disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,492,527 (hereinafter “the 527 patent”); U.S. Pat. No. 7,799,044 (hereinafter “the 044 patent”) and U.S. Pat. No. 7,591,829 (hereinafter the 829 patent”), the entire disclosures of which are incorporated herein by reference. The 527 patent specifically discloses a surgical shaver for use in endoscopic surgical procedures that drives an elongated rotatable surgical instrument and aspirates material from a surgical work site as shown in FIGS. 1-5 and 14 of the 527 patent. The surgical shaver includes a handpiece with a distal end including a collet assembly for attaching and detaching tools to the body of the handpiece 10 including a tool having an elongated rotatable inner blade and an elongated outer blade. The collet assembly of the 527 patent is manually rotatable to enable rotation of the cutting window.
The 044 patent discloses a powered surgical apparatus including a cutting blade assembly connectable with a handle and having a manually actuable input device providing at least one signal relevant to at least one operation of the system and a controller that received the at least one input signal and provide an output signal to perform at least one operation of the system. The 829 patent discloses a surgical implement for use with a hand-piece of a surgical instrument for performing a surgical treatment.
Although conventional surgical instruments are generally understood and considered generally reliable, these prior art assemblies are still relatively complex in construction and operation. An added disadvantage is that the known designs are generally structurally complicated and result in relatively higher manufacturing costs for the medical instrument.
Despite the long-known solutions, there remains a significant need to provide an improved surgical apparatus capable of providing improved performance and gains in efficiency, performance, cost and packaging of the surgical apparatus and associated instruments and tools. Despite the long-known solutions, there remains a significant need to provide an improved surgical apparatus that can overcome the problems of the known art.